


Possible and  Irresponsible

by Esmethewitch



Category: Original Work
Genre: Biology, Ethical Dilemmas, Fake Science, Friendship, Gen, Genocide, Good and Evil, Morally Ambiguous Character, Plants, Scams, Space Opera, Space is BIG, Trauma, Unethical Experimentation, Worldbuilding, data science, mentoring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 04:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmethewitch/pseuds/Esmethewitch
Summary: A medical resident ships out to an isolated research station and falls into a world of poor statistical practices, intrigue, cover-ups, and possible redemption.





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> This has been on my back-burner for months, and I posted this to Ao3 to give me motivation to actually write this. I love constructive criticism.

Two weeks into his “little jaunt” by transit pod to Thunderhead Research Station, Rhyssim was beginning to question the sanity of his decision to join the Interplanetary Health Service. When he lived planetside on what his people called Orsoni, Rhyssim had never really understood how much _space_ was in, well, space. The transit pod had a thin bedbag on the wall, a handle next to it that would release a mask in case of pressure loss, and one tiny portal the size of a fist so the passenger could squint out at the black void of space and the grey ring-bread shape of the station.. He had to strap himself into the commode as the tiny ship was much too small to have its own artificial gravity field.

At least he had his tablet to read his old notes and the trashy novels he’d downloaded before taking the trip, but he had no data connection so his only communication with the world beyond the pod was the daily radio check-in with the Transportation officers of _Cyrene_ and Thunderhead to ensure that yes, he was still on course. The days on the pod blurred into each other, starting with the daily radio calls to the officers and a slurp of protein goo from a packet and ending with a pathetic attempt at hygiene as there was no gravity, and therefore no shower. “I’ll shower at Thunderhead”, he muttered to himself as he tore open the packets of moist towelettes stored in one of the wall compartments and swabbed the limp, wet squares over his oily body. Supposedly they had all the same chemicals as soap and were antibacterial, but Rhyssim knew that antibiotics could sometimes do more harm than good. _I’ll be surprised if I don’t have a new resistant Streptococcus strain or two on me by the time this is all over, he thought. At least I smell like lemons and armpits instead of just armpits._

After three years aboard the Service freighter _Cyrene_ speaking about influenza prevention and tending to nothing more exciting than a hangover or recalcitrant plantar wart, Public Health Officer Second Class Rhyssim Ghorstin was more than ready to start his medical research residency at Thunderhead. They only took one doctor every five years or so. Though the Committee had placed him in the station under the supervision of the celebrated immunologist Dr. Piomko, he still had the irrational fear that she would take one look at him and send him back to the Academy by transit pod.

“They’ve moved beyond exclusivity at Thunderhead,” his Academy advisor Dr. Rashil had said, shaking his head as he saw the station’s name on the list of residency programs Rhyssim was applying to. “Now they’re just snobbish.It’s like pulling teeth to convince them to take any new staff we send them. Piomko likes to vet the staff herself down to the surgical techs and laboratory bottle-washers, but she still has to take at least one of ours every ten years. Confederacy regulations, you see. If we send you there, we expect a full report on what they actually get up to. Papers have been dropping off from their end, and it would be nice to know that they’re really working and not just eating and drinking well on our credits.” _If we send you there,_ Rhyssim thought.

“I promise that if I am selected to go, I will keep you updated on my progress there, sir.” Rashil smiled and made a few notes on his tablet. That was over three years ago. Rhyssim could scarcely recall his Academy days, and worried that the medical knowledge he gained there was leaving him. He felt the sweat roll down his arms and soak the sleeves of his baby-blue uniform tunic as he mentally rehearsed for the upcoming debriefing. He reread his idol’s best journal articles: one on the feasibility of various treatments for tetracycline-resistant strains of Ionish Plague, another detailing the progression of rashes in Hashi-Yakotim’s Disease, the first study of its kind. Rhyssim joined the Service to reduce the burden of disease for all people in the Confederacy (That was what he wrote on his application anyway as a naive boy of seventeen), but he did not fail to notice that under the “Materials Used” sections for Piomko’s papers was written: “500 humans of each sex, between the ages of 15 and 40, in good health at the beginning of this study.” These people were certainly not in “good health” at the end of the end of the study. He knew without having to ask that they must have been Borderers, squeezed out of their land by war and the rising seas. _At least they got food and medical care at the station,_ he told himself. _They would’ve drowned or starved where they were._

Day by day, the bulk of Thunderhead Station loomed larger in Rhyssim’s viewport. He pressed his face against the tiny clear circle and squinted. The station was a gray torus in space, illuminated by the gigantic overhead mirrors positioned to catch the blinding light of Sun Titov 59-B. This secondhand light in turn shone off the clear panels on the top half of the torus, reflecting despite the long-dead engineers’ best efforts. If he watched the station for longer than a minute, he could see it slowly rotating, a feature designed to create an artificial gravity. For Thunderhead’s inhabitants, loss of bone density or muscle mass from a lack of gravity was the least of their concerns.

As he watched the station revolve, he was gripped by awe and fear. He worried that the launch officers had miscalculated the trajectory of his pod, and that Thunderhead would turn before he could reach the docking bay. This error would leave him to slowly circle round the behemoth of a station with a diameter of a small planet until the paltry fuel burned out, the life support systems died, and he became nothing more than a tiny artificial moon. An illogical fear to be sure; but Rhyssim was an anxious person by nature. When he lived planet-side, he constantly scanned the skies for meteors or debris entering the atmosphere, boiled and filtered his water for fear of bacteria and metal poisoning.This anxiety would not serve him well in his new position.

Rhyssim looked at the viewport again, and caught his reflection. Acne rose up like bubbles of magma on his olive skin, and his dark eyes were shadowed by a lack of sleep. He scowled at his reflection, and closed the shade over the viewport. He strapped himself into his bedbag and did not open it again. Even when he felt the sickening crunch of the transit pod’s attachment gear locking onto the station’s docking bay, accompanied by a heavy chorus of thumps. He fancied that he could feel the side of the station revolving, but that may have been his imagination.


	2. Growing Unease

Rhyssim stumbled out of his transit pod into the airlock, stomping as his legs had grown unaccustomed to gravity in the past couple of weeks. As the airlock doors whooshed open, he fell under the weight of his duffel bag. _Just in time to make a good first impression,_ he bitterly mused.

A woman with a white labcoat over her blue uniform tunic gingerly stepped towards him, picked up his duffel bag with one arm, and extended the other to him. “It takes everyone like this after a couple of weeks without gravity,” she said. With a surprisingly strong pull, she lifted Rhyssim up. Her skin was a light brown, wrinkled from frequent frowning. Silver-streaked black hair sat in a bun on her head. “Welcome to Thunderhead Station, Resident Ghorstin. I am Dr. Piomko, and I hope that your trip was not too unpleasant.”

Rhyssim staggered up. “Thank you, ma’am,” he replied. “Transit pods are transit pods. I am glad to be out of it and here at the station.”

Dr. Piomko smiled tightly. “We’re glad to have you here,” she said. “By our standards, it is the middle of the night cycle, so in order to get accustomed to the time zone here you should go to sleep soon. I will show you to your quarters, and you will receive the full tour tomorrow.”

Rhyssim nodded. They walked out of the airlock, and the doors shut behind them. He could hear the faint clunk of the transit pod disengaging and returning to the _Cyrene_. After a short walk down a gray hallway, they entered a larger chamber and passed below a vast curved ceiling of reinforced zanit-crystal.

Rhyssim’s eyes widened as he took in the expanse of space before them. This was a far cry from the _Cyrene’s_ austere hallways shining with chrome. The walls were lined with green banks of vegetation, bushes clinging close to the floor beneath vines trained up webs of silvery wire. These would improve the air quality, but his eyes widened as he recognized the bright fans of Blue Tashid leaf, a tough but sweet green that his people wrapped around balls of cooked asropht-grain and meat. Tashid was a crop that nobody had even heard of off of Orsoni. He was tempted to ask Piomko who was in charge of that section of the garden.

The rows of gardens were not surprising to Rhyssim as he knew that air purification was important; even the _Cyrene_ had the walls of its living quarters lined with shiny green leaves of Stone-Love and the feathery Widow’s Scrub-brush. But what was unusual here, he realized as he looked closer at the vegetation, was the sheer quantity of food crops in the garden. He’d expected the research station’s inhabitants to subsist on preserved rations.

_It would be nice to know that they’re really working and not just eating and drinking well on our credits._ Dr. Rashil’s words came back to him. The Tashid made him think that somebody in a position of authority here was either a gourmand or from Orsoni. But when the bright globes of fruits that even he did not recognize gave way to rows of blooming grain, including a large patch of Psanti (a grain that only the poorest would touch due to its dull flavor and chewy, rubbery texture), he did not think that the food crops were grown out of a whimsical desire for Tashid-wraps. He did some mental math as Piomko’s heels clicked against the floor. It would cost next to nothing in credits to maintain the garden; seeds could be saved, and the plants were doubtlessly irrigated with waste water, fertilized with processed matter from the latrines. If they were growing their own food like a colony, then the large sum allocated to feeding the researchers and subjects would not be used for its intended purpose at all.

They left the gardens, and descended a lift. On this lower level, the halls were lit by faint glowing spherical lamps embedded in the black walls. They passed a series of doors, each with its own keypad. Name plaques adorned most of them. “This is a residential level,” Piomko said. “I apologize for not giving you the full tour, but it is the middle of our night cycle after a rather trying day for me and my team. Tomorrow, you will see the whole station and meet your assistants.”

“I understand,” Rhyssim replied, and a yawn escaped him. He was tired, too. They stopped at one door marked: “R. Ghorstin”.

“The keycode is ‘0832’,” Piomko told him, and took out her tablet. She scrolled and tapped it a few times, after which Rhyssim’s tablet dinged. “I’ve sent you the facilities files. You can have a look at them in the morning. Should have done that sooner, but oh well. You’re here. I shall meet with you in the morning at eight, if that is agreeable to you.” She handed Rhyssim his duffel bag back.

“That works. Thank you, ma’am,” Rhyssim said. He keyed in the code, and entered his new living quarters. There was a hot-spot (a tiny table that could be heated to cook), a bed placed under a ventilation grate, a desk with a chair, and a little bathroom complete with a toilet and shower. For this station, it may have been modest, but for a young Second-Class officer aboard a Confederation freighter for the last three years, it was the height of luxury. He set his duffel beside the bed, stripped, and took a long shower. Once changed into sleepwear and dry, he sank into the soft mattress and cocooned his body in clean sheets.

He drifted off to sleep in a matter of seconds, and dreamed of gardens that grew red hearts on bloody vines, though these uncanny fruits had green leaves sprouting from the aortic arch. He was lost, and the little gravel path he followed narrowed. The hearts beat like distant drums, and with every step he took, the speed of the heartbeats increased. It was not a pleasant dream, and when his eyes opened he was very glad to have woken.

Until he realized that the thing that jolted him from sleep was the scream echoing down the ventilation grate, loud and piercing as a warning siren.


	3. Nightmare

Rhyssim jerked up from his bed, pulling away the tangled sheet. Was someone being attacked outside his door, or further away on the station? He fumbled for the lightswitch at his bedside until he found it and toggled it on. He ripped open his duffel and grabbed the first-aid kit he’d been issued as a medical cadet at Academy, a light but full bag complete with everything needed to triage, and opened the door to his room. He stepped into the hallway. The pallid lights shone on a deserted corridor. Nobody was here. Maybe he’d only imagined it. He returned to his room, and settled back into bed, but he left the first-aid kit on his bedside table. 

“Shh, it’s alright, lovey. I’m here for you. Tell me what you need.” This new voice sounded like a teenage boy, fighting to keep the panic out of his words. Rhyssim nearly jumped. It sounded like this faceless person was standing right next to him. Then, he realized that this voice was reverberating down a pipe. He clicked the light on again, and turned his head to look at the ventilation grate. Of course these people would not be in his hall. A whimper sounded, and the boy sighed.

“I know it’s hard. You don’t have to talk to me about it. Can I get you some water? I think water might help…” Whoever this was had taken on the pleading tones of someone who desperately needed to feel useful.

“Don’t wanna get you in trouble…” the boy’s companion muttered. “Don’t need water. Want you to stay safe.”

“It won’t get me in trouble, Sal.” the first speaker stated. “All I have to do is take this mug off our shelf,” and here Rhyssim could hear light footsteps, “Open our door, walk to the washroom, and fill it up. If you want tea, I can turn on the hall hotspot and put on the kettle. I will come back right after, I promise.”

“Need to know you can keep your word,” the boy who had to be called Sal sobbed out. “Once, you didn’t come back.”

“Things were different, then.” They were both quiet. Rhyssim could hear a creaking of springs, as though someone had rolled over in bed. The walls must be thin here.

“What are you doing?” the boy who was not Sal asked.

“Don’t want you to see me like this,” Sal said. “You shouldn’t have to put up with all this _frisc_ from me. You fuck me, you’re not my therapist. You didn’t sign up for this.” Usage of “frisc” meant that Sal could originally hail from one of the many impoverished farming communities of Pheshin-34, but as the Pheshini left their planet behind, the slang had spread.

“I hope I do more than fuck you. I really do. I’m sorry I’m not of more use at times like this.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut up about that. Life’s never been about what we deserve. Especially for people like us.” The tone shifted from comforting to authoritative. Perhaps Sal had said similar things too many times before.

There was another scream of bedsprings, so Sal’s lover might have sat down on the the side of his bed. “I just want you to know that you’re safe here. We can both leave this room and come back. Nobody outside can hear you cry.”

 _Worthy sentiment but totally inaccurate,_ Rhyssim thought. He felt dirty, listening in on other people’s private conversations. Worse still, if these two were sleeping together, they may keep him awake while he’s actually trying to _sleep_. But they were having a heart-to-heart after a possible PTSD-induced nightmare. This was not a circumstance where it would be at all proper to bang on the wall and shout at them to keep it down.

“So, do you want water? I think you should have water.”

“Don’t know.” This utterance reminded him of something a scared child would say, and Rhyssim realized how heartbreakingly young both boys sounded. They couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. Compared to his world-weary twenty six years in this galaxy, they were children. The door to their room slid open.

“Come down the hall with me, and we can get you some water and sit on the bench. Are you okay with that?”

“Guess so. Can I--no, that’s stupid, we’ll get in trouble for that. Never mind.”

“Can you what?” the first speaker asked softly. “Let me know what you need, and then we’ll get it for you. I love you, Sal. You don’t have to be ashamed of asking for things.”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“Yes. Thanks for asking. We won’t get in trouble for it.”

Two sets of footsteps faded away.

 _Materials used: 500 humans of each sex, between the ages of 15 and 40, in good health at the beginning of this study._ They weren’t just words on a page anymore.


End file.
